After hugely successful stints as General Manager of both Pontiac and Chevrolet, and one as a Vice President of General Motors, John Z. DeLorean left GM in 1973 to form his own automobile company. A two-seat sports car prototype was shown in the mid-1970s called the DeLorean Safety Vehicle (DSV), with bodywork designed by Italdesign’s Giorgetto Giugiaro. After numerous delays the car entered production as the DeLorean DMC-12 with stainless steel body and gullwing doors. A backbone chassis was developed by Lotus and largely copied the design of the diminutive Elite two seat sports car. Powered by the ‘Douvrin’ V6 engine developed by Peugeot, Renault, and Volvo, in Euro-spec the DMC-12 had spritely performance but was hardly a supercar. With additional emission equipment required for sale in the USA, the DMC-12 was positively underpowered.

Numerous delays meant the DeLorean did not become available to consumers until January 1981. In the interim the car market had slumped considerably due to a 1980 US recession. This was compounded by lukewarm reviews from the motoring press, who had grown tired of years of expectations and broken promises related to the DMC-12. The general consensus being the DeLorean's gullwing doors and rakish styling did not compensate for high price and low horsepower relative to equivalent-priced sports cars on the market. While interest in the DeLorean quickly dwindled, competing models with lower price tags and more powerful engines such as the Chevy Corvette sold in record numbers in spite of the ongoing recession. By February 1982, more than half of the roughly 7,000 DeLoreans produced remained unsold. DMC was $175 million in debt, leading the Dunmurry factory to be placed in receivership.